An opening-lap collision with Charles Leclerc in Austin resulted in Grosjean receiving a grid penalty in Mexico as well as one penalty point. That brings his total for the past 12 months up to ten points, with two more triggering an automatic one-race ban.

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“I’m in a s*** situation,” Grosjean said. “I have two points left, OK I get one back after the race and two back after Brazil so then it will be a bit nicer, but sometimes you take a penalty point and you don’t know why.

“The blue flag in Singapore, why did I get two penalty points and five-second penalty? OK I blocked Lewis [Hamilton] and I apologized. I was in my fight as well. By the time I was in front of the Williams, the Williams didn’t let the other car by either so I couldn’t move straight away. Barcelona, two points three places, fair enough, I made a mistake.”

Grosjean says that from the outset of the Circuit of The Americas weekend, he was already in the mindset of trying to avoid penalty points, highlighting the precariousness of his position.

“I will try to be as good as I can. In Austin, I didn’t want to be aggressive, and I lifted off out of the fight, and then I got caught in dirty air. I trust my good star to be aligned and everything is going to go well.”

And Grosjean believes the penalty points system needs to take into account the impact of an incident on a driver’s race, having eventually retired.

“I think I have got penalized enough because my race was ruined. You can go through it a hundred times. There are penalties you deserve. The points system, do we need it in F1, with supposedly the best drivers in the world? I don’t know. Put it in NASCAR. Guys will be banned three times a year.”

Chris Medland

While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor.
Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, he contributes to BBC 5Live and Sky Sports in the UK as well as working with titles in Japan and the Middle East.